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A Day in the Life of... Pete Wood, Senior Sponsorship Manager, Fuse Sport + Entertainment

Pete Wood, Senior Sponsorship Manager, Fuse Sport + Entertainment.

1.What does a Senior Sponsorship Manager actually do?
The short answer is, helping a brand achieve its business objectives through sponsorship and partnerships. This means a lot more than just sticking branding around a football pitch or on a festival big screen; you have to think about business challenges and understand how partnerships can help solve them.

2. Can you lead us through a timeline of a typical day in the office?
My ‘to do’ list is always varied - you could see yourself crafting a sponsorship strategy one minute and then project managing a live campaign the next. It means a lot of ‘alt_shift’ as you flick between tasks and a real work out for the left and right side of the brain! The job is mostly office based, though I do travel for site visits and meetings with rights holders

3. How do you become a Senior Sponsorship Manager?
People tend to come from a range of backgrounds. I came from a media planning background, so quite strategic and analytical. Others come from more of an experiential background. This makes for a working environment where you trade and learn skills with colleagues, which is enjoyable.

4. What are the qualities needed to be a Senior Sponsorship Manager and what have you learned since being in the role (challenges/opportunities)?
You need strong project management skills and, as you are working with lots of stakeholders, being good at forming relationships is important. Aside from that, it helps if you have an interest in sports/entertainment/arts as you are more able to see opportunities for your clients. As Fuse Sport + Entertainment has grown, I’ve enjoyed applying my background in media to carve a niche in setting KPIs, measurement and evaluation; you can develop an area of expertise and lead knowledge sharing around the company to improve client offering.

5. Can you tell us about a project/task within your Sponsorship career that you have particularly enjoyed?
I have found working on Nissan’s global sponsorship strategy particularly fulfilling. I joined Fuse just as we were setting out the vision with Nissan and since then we have worked with Nissan to tender for, acquire and then activate properties such as the UEFA Champions League, African Cup of Nations and Man City. It’s great to see such a bold vision come to life.

Fuse Sport + Entertainment is a leading sport and entertainment agency, part of the Omnicom Media Group. We create inspiring partnerships and experiences for brands. We are proud to have won UK Sponsorship Awards 'Consultancy of the Year' 2014. We have over 65 staff in the UK and 150+ across Europe. Current clients include Vodafone, Disney, Royal London, Gatorade, McDonald’s, Google, Nissan, Intel, Virgin Media, Waitrose, John Lewis, Starbucks, Pepsi, Specsavers and Visa.